Thursday, November 01, 2012

Quote of the Day

"Does deploying these ads at the last minute really seem like a move from a campaign that feels confident it’s going to win? These are some of the ugliest and most dishonest attacks of an unusually ugly and dishonest campaign. They’re the kind of ads you expect from a secretive outside group, not the campaign itself. They’re the kind of ads a campaign keeps in a glass case labeled, 'Break in case of emergency.' They feel desperate."

-- Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald on the rash of almost unimaginably dishonest last-minute campaign ads from the Romney camp and what they may say about its state-of-mind heading into election day

Romney's spent the past several months running the most brazenly mendacious campaign modern politics has ever seen -- one that goes far beyond the kind of pernicious spin we've come to expect from political candidates and into the realm of flat-out, easily debunked, staggeringly audacious lying. The idea that he could get any worse than he's been since the campaign began in earnest is kind of tough to wrap your head around -- and yet it's happening. When you lie so bombastically that the very people you're attempting to endear yourself to begin not simply calling you out for it but publicly saying that your surrogates who spread the same lie are "full of shit" -- that's when you know you're a scam-artist who's making the most desperate and cynical play for power the American people have probably ever seen in any of their lifetimes.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

If the US electorate has any sense, they would note the stark contrast of one candidate stopping to provide aid during a national disaster to the other candidate doubling-down on the bullshit spewing attack ads just before the election. The choice is even more clear who is more qualified for the job.

Interesting note: I took a poll call a couple weeks ago when all the news was how well Romney was polling and all the ground he had gained. The poll had several questions relating to the presidential race and a local one. For all of the questions, you answered by pressing 1 or 2. The 1 was always the democratic candidate or favorable and the 2 was always the republican or unfavorable. There was one exception - when asked which candidate you would vote for, the 1 was Romney and the 2 was Obama. I had already put my finger on 1 in anticipation, but waited to listen through the whole message. I wonder how many people just pushed the 1 button, on the assumption that Obama/favorable was there.~HG

Here's my take. Romney has always been a truthless chameleon, ready to say whatever he thought might win him a few more votes. The national political media have tolerated, if not enabled, this for more than a year, fluffing Romney vigorously every time he's shown any spark. Now it's getting so bad that even those hacks and stenographers are reporting the lies. It's breathtaking.

And what does it say about the American electorate when Romney lies so blatantly, so often - and the race is this close? I hope he doesn't win, but Romney could win. It's that close. What does that say about us?

Obama was never going to lose. In the last one hundred years four elected presidents have been defeated for a second term: Taft, Hoover, Carter, and Bush I. The men that beat them: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Mitt’s name should never be included in the same sentence with these men, and I am ashamed to have included him in this paragraph. While Obama is not Lincoln or Roosevelt, he is certainly a full lap up on the four losers. The Media--- all of it--- jonesed on the tension of a ‘who-will-win” scenario because, well, that’s what they do. I plan to be in bed snoring by midnight on Tuesday. I will enjoy the sleep of great contentment.

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